To prepare myself for
the release of The Dark Knight Rises, I decided to forego watching
the obligatory Batman Begins and The Dark Knight in favour of Tim
Burton's 1989 effort, the first stab at bringing Bob Kane's masked
vigilante to the big screen (yeah I know they made a movie out of the
60s TV Show, but this was the first big budget version), the
wonderfully titled....BATMAN. Now I grew up watching the previous
Batman series, but looking back at the Burton's first film, I found
it a little hard to watch which is because I think Christopher
Nolan's Batman has been so prominent in our lives for the last 7
years, anything that came before is going to seem inferior. No that's
not to say Batman '89 is a bad film, quite the opposite, but compared
to the grittier, more realistic approach to the character that Nolan
gave us, Burton's seem more in-line with the Adam West show of the
1960s, it's a lot more cartoonish which I found depressingly jarring
having grown up with those film through the 1990s.
Things got
progressively worse as those films went along, with the exception of
Batman Returns, when Joel Schumacher to over the reins, he decided to
wrap them in bubblegum and gives a throwback to the 60s era Batman,
which unfortunately seemed to be it's downfall, especially at a time
when the Batman comics were getting decidedly more darker in tone
thanks to writer's like Frank Miller and his Year 1 books, Knight
Fall and Jeph Loeb's Long Halloween (which in my opinion should be
made into a movie ASAP), Schumacher killed the franchise with Batman
& Robin which almost became a spoof of what was done before hand
which is actually quite insulting to Tim Burton, but I shouldn't
dwell on the the latter half of that franchise because this is a
review for Batman '89. What we have is the origin of the Joker played
in OTT fashion by Jack Nicholson, his transformation from second hand
guy to Jack Palance's gangster Carl Grissom to maniacal crime
kingpin. It's all about the Joker and very little is focused on
batman, he has no origin in this apart from some small snippets of
back story told in flash backs and in tales told by Alfred, Bruce
Wayne seems like a lonely person, cooped up in this big mansion with
just Alfred, he seems lost but all that changes when sexy
photographer Vicki Vale comes on the scene. Bruce comes more out of
his shell when he's around Miss Vale. But it's still all about the
Joker, and how he terrorizes Gotham.
When it comes to the
casting of Batman, it's all about Jack, It's Nicholson's show from
minute one and he relishes every moment on screen, taking the joker
beyond pantomime villain into seriously deranged psychopathic realms
of villainy. Now it's completely unfair to compare Nicholson's Joker
to Heath Ledger's as both are totally different, Ledger went to a
dark place to pull off his incredible performance as the sociapathic
Joker in The Dark Knight, but Nicholson was less intense and a lot
more fun to watch as he was doing what the joker should be doing and
smiling about it. There's a level of overacting going on in
Nicholson's performance and I think it's what really keeps the film
together because he makes you want to watch every time he's on screen
just to see what naughty shenanigans he'll get up to next. That's not
to say Ledger didn't do that, but he made people want to watch
because of his intense spin on the character. Jack Nicholson is a
much more accessible and likeable Joker and that's what makes this
film fun.
Michael Keaton was an
odd choice for Bruce Wayne/Batman, as he's not an action star or a
muscular man, but he's a good actor and he's well cast as Both, he's
much more light and less intense than Christian Bale and he tends not
to live up to this playboy image that people have of him, one scene,
a diner scene in which Bruce and Vicki are eating in this huge dining
room with a massive table dead centre sees Bruce and one end and
Vicki at the other and Bruce decides that they should move so they
end up in the kitchen where Alfred relays a story about Bruce's youth
to Vale. It's this kind of scene we wouldn't get in a Christopher
Nolan Batman film. This shows that Bruce is just like everyone else
which I think is kind of cool.
Looking back now, while
the production design is fantastic, it does look relatively dated,
especially while watching the film on DVD or VHS as a reviewer, I
noticed a lot of imperfections and quite low quality FX for the time
it was made. Another problem I had was the 1940s look the film had
when it came to costumes and sets, Gotham looks great but it suffered
from an industrial look which reminds me more of the old matinee
stuff we had back in the 40s and 50s with pipes and weird
architecture spread around the city and the news room of the Gotham
Gazette, which looked like a news room from a classic film, then the
characters step outside and we have modern day cars, Colour TV's and
Video Cameras not mention Prince songs, this really threw me off as
the concept of a retro modern environment would have worked much
better had the film been set in the 40s or 50s. It's touches like
this that brings the film down a notch after all these years. But
maybe I was content with that before Christopher Nolan's film came
out which is only why it now throws me off. There's not a single bad
thing I can say about Tim Burton's direction as it's pretty damn good
and he even upped the look and style for the phenomenal Batman
Returns, but it's the period design that really got me thinking over
the film.
Overall Tim Burton's
Batman is an enjoyable action adventure with a some great sets and
some inspired action sequences that is let down by outdated special
FX and a confusing retro modern concept. At times it feels quite
childish but at other times it feels quite serious. It has a great
over the top performance by Jack Nicholson and a good performance by
Michael Keaton, all set to a brilliant score by Danny Elfman. I've
not seen it on Blu-ray yet but the DVD release that I have isn't
that great as the picture is quite grainy and at times quite dark,
but for pure popcorn entertainment and an alternative to Christopher
Nolan's Batman, Tim Burton's film is a definite recommendation.
Words: Peter W.Osmond
Good review Peter. There’s some camp to this flick but it goes along perfectly with the overall mood and pace of Burton’s direction. Obviously Nicholson is the main stand-out in this flick, but it’s also Keaton who does an exceptional job as Batman/Bruce Wayne acting like a normal dude, who just dresses up like a bat and beats crooks up at-night. That Prince music is a little strange, though.
ReplyDelete